


leave all your love and your longing behind

by CrazyAce_n_PokerFace



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, You Have Been Warned, and lots of side-pairings will be mentioned, but also the possibility of tasteful sexytimes down the line, lots of cameos by several other people, rated M mostly for Levi's language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 19:19:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4678322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrazyAce_n_PokerFace/pseuds/CrazyAce_n_PokerFace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>As it turns out, she has cause to be grateful that her soulmark stayed illegible for so long, and that it’s in a place that nobody can see, because when it finally clears up, it reads:</p>
  <p><i>Hey! Hey, you on the bike! Watch where you’re going! You fucking shithead, you just got mud all over my fucking jeans! Yeah, I’m talking to you, shitty glasses! I just got these! What’re you even doing on this side, can’t you see there’s a fucking bike lane for people like you? Damn public menace! Hey, I’m talking to you! Hey! What the hell—why are you laughing? You think this is funny, punk? Huh? Huh? I’m gonna fucking murder you, just watch me, you inconsiderate asshole—<strong>would you stop laughing</strong>—oh my god, did you just flash me? Look, nobody wants to see your scrawny—oh, fuck me sideways, are you shitting me? That can’t say what I think it says. Fuck, no. <strong>No.</strong></i>

</p>
  <p>Not very appropriate words to be permanently inked on a nine-year-old’s body, her parents agree, peering down at their dejected child.</p>
</blockquote><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">—Or, the Soulmark & Reincarnation AU nobody asked for, but my brain decided to write regardless.</span>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. run fast for your mother, run fast for your father

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day Six of the [Second LeviHan Week](http://levihanweek.tumblr.com/post/125698566225/). Prompt: Denial. Rating: M for language, mostly Levi's. Title and chapter titles taken from "Dog Days Are Over" by Florence + the Machine. Much thanks to the mods for doing such an awesome job running this whole thing. ^^ 
> 
> Originally meant to be a oneshot, but it's spiralled into a multichapter WIP. Oops?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hange is born with her mark, a blurry, smudged square of blocked text that looks more like a birthmark than the first words her soulmate will ever speak to her. It doesn’t clear up and become legible until she’s nearly ten, which is about eight years longer than anyone was expecting.

* * *

  

Hange is born with her mark, a blurry, smudged square of blocked text that looks more like a birthmark than the first words her soulmate will ever speak to her. It doesn’t clear up and become legible until she’s nearly ten, which is about eight years longer than anyone was expecting.

“It’s okay, baby,” her mother reassures her when she’s seven years old, having just caught her in the bathroom with a magnifying glass, a microscope, and even her father’s antique telescope, trying desperately to figure out what her mark says. “It just means your soulmate’s shy.”

“Really?” Hange asks.

“Really, really,” her mother promises with a smile.  

“But what if I meet him or her and I don’t even know it ‘cause I can’t read their words?” Hange scowls down at the blotch resting over her left ribs. Stupid skin with its stupid problems with her stupid soulmark—her soulmate can’t help being shy! It should hurry up and let her read it already!

“Well, then,” her mother says, “I suppose you’ll just have to be very memorable when you meet them, won’t you?”

“Huh,” Hange says, blinking up at her. “I can do that.”

“I imagine you can, baby,” her mother replies, placing a kiss on the top of her head.

 

* * *

 

Years later, she’ll find out that her mother was wrong—Levi isn’t shy so much as stubbornly, rabidly, and pigheadedly opposed to any contact with anybody he doesn’t like, which happens to be the majority of the human race.

Hange forgives her. It wasn’t her fault Levi made a point of defying all possible expectations of him. Besides, she’s right about Hange, at least—her first meeting with him was very,  _very_ memorable.

(“Memorable? Memorable? It was a fucking shit-show.”

“Oh, hush, Levi.”)

 

* * *

 

As it turns out, she has cause to be grateful that her soulmark stayed illegible for so long, and that it’s in a place that nobody can see, because when it finally clears up, it reads:

 _Hey! Hey, you on the bike! Watch where you’re going! You fucking shithead, you just got mud all over my fucking jeans! Yeah, I’m talking to you, shitty glasses! I just got these! What’re you even doing on this side, can’t you see there's a fucking bike lane for people like you? Damn public menace! Hey, I’m talking to you! Hey! What the hell—why are you laughing? You think this is funny, punk? Huh? Huh? I’m gonna fucking murder you, just watch me, you inconsiderate asshole—_ **_would you stop laughing_ ** _—oh my god, did you just flash me? Look, nobody wants to see your scrawny—oh, fuck me sideways, are you shitting me? That can’t say what I think it says. Fuck, no._ **_No._ **

Not very appropriate words to be permanently inked on a nine-year-old’s body, her parents agree, peering down at their dejected child.

 

* * *

 

The thing is, Hange hates her soulmark.

“Oh, baby, I’m sure he doesn’t stay angry at you for long,” her mother says.

“But what if they were twenty-thousand dollar designer jeans? She might be in trouble then,” her father says in the faux-serious tone that he likes to use to wind her mother up.

“Dear,” her mother says, exasperated.

“What? It’s a definite possibility.”

“Your daughter’s soulmark just revealed itself to be an angry rant stuffed chock full of profanity, and you think the appropriate response is to joke about it?” her mother says, raising a brow pointedly at him.

“It’s the only response, dear. Obviously her soulmate is in desperate need of humor and levity. And look at it this way, if those were ridiculously expensive jeans, at least her soulmate will be filthy rich—a definite plus. He could fund her research lab! Why, she could—”

“I don’t want it,” Hange says abruptly.

Her parents turn to look at her, exchanging worried glances. “Well, perhaps not a research lab, then—” her father starts.

“I don’t want my soulmark,” Hange clarifies.

Her mother kneels in front of her, taking her hands. “Hange, honey, I know your soulmark is a bit of a shock, but first meetings aren’t always like they are in the movies—”

“It looks wrong,” Hange interrupts. “It’s not supposed to look like this. The handwriting’s all wrong.”

“The—the handwriting?” Her mother stares at her quizzically. “You're not…upset about the words?”

Hange shakes her head. The words are fine. The words aren’t what’s wrong—okay, actually, no, they  _are_  what's wrong, but not because of what they say. It’s because they're the wrong words, in the wrong handwriting, and it’s all just  _wrong_. Hange doesn’t know how to explain it.

“It’s supposed to be  _different_ ,” she tells her mother.

“Different how, honey?”

“I don’t know,” Hange says, frustrated. “It just  _is_.”

Her mother can’t say anything in reply, only wraps her up in her arms and hugs her tight. “It’ll be fine, baby,” she promises. “If you don't want him, then you don’t have to stay.”

Hange just squeezes her eyes shut tight.

 

* * *

 

Later, when she’s older, she’ll slowly figure out what it is that bothers her about it. It’s not that she doesn’t want a soulmate—it’s just that her soulmate can’t possibly be the one who wrote her mark. Or, rather, she’s supposed to have another mark in addition to the one she has. And it’s supposed to be in the same place, but it’s not supposed to have as many words. Sometimes, when she stumbles into the bathroom after waking up, she’ll look into the mirror and think,  _Wait a minute, it’s supposed to be_ —

_—shorter._

_—darker._

_—a line, not a square._

_—lacking punctuation._

_—messier; the handwriting’s all wrong, what on earth, he’d_ ** _never_** _have such neat handwriting_.

She doesn’t know how she knows these things; she doesn’t know why her soulmate’s a he, or why she feels like she’s already met him, or why it’s like his name is on the tip of her tongue, just outside the edge of memory; she just  _knows_.

Her soulmark isn’t hers.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes, Hange has dreams. Well, not dreams so much as screaming nightmares. And not really nightmares, plural, as it is  _nightmare_ , singular. It’s always the same: she’ll be standing on a high, high wall next to a firing cannon, yelling orders at a bunch of panicking people, and then she feels it—a sudden burning pain on her left side, right over her ribs.

She screams in pain, in denial, in sheer defiance of the sudden truth that hits her, but when she pries open her shirt with shaking fingers, the proof is there, staring her right in the face:

Her soulmark has faded from black to a faint, barely-there gray. It’s a beautiful color, actually, almost silver against her tan skin, but the truth it represents is the ugliest, most terrible thing she can think of.

He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s—

She throws back her head to howl his name, but before the first syllable makes it past her lips, she always, always wakes up.

Hange really,  _really_  hates that dream.

 

* * *

 

When she’s eleven, her parents die in an explosion at their lab. It’s all very terrible, and tragic, and everyone agrees it’s quite a shame, but since her parents have no relatives and all of their close friends and colleagues perished in the same unfortunate accident, Hange’s sent to a foster home.

It’s a nice enough place with nice enough people, and Hange does her best to get along with everyone, but sometimes she gets… _angry_. And why shouldn’t she? Her parents are dead, she’s in an unfamiliar place, nobody seems too inclined to be her friend, even when she  _tries so hard_ —all that sadness and fear and frustration end up boiling inside of her until it explodes as pure rage. And when she gets angry…well. People get hurt, usually because she ends up fighting kids bigger than her (she’s not gonna bully little kids, not like some of the people she knows), and she doesn’t stop until she’s down, and she doesn’t go down easy. Then, in addition to the fighting, there’s the fact that she’s not doing so well academically. Her parents used to praise her for her insatiable curiosity, for her drive to learn, but in her new school she’s found to be “too disruptive,” “unable to concentrate,” “unable to express herself,” “too hyperactive,” “unsuited to the curriculum,” etc., etc.

She ends up getting shuffled around the next one and a half years, going from place to place with the label “problem child” first informally and then formally attached to her file. With each new home, Hange feels her hopes dwindle, feels her heart curl up small and lonely in her chest, feels like she’s slowly, quietly drowning in despair.

And then…she ends up at Mr. Arlert’s, and everything changes.

 

* * *

 

First of all, Mr. Arlert has a lot of books. So many books that he doesn’t have enough bookshelves. So many books that he actually stacks them up as makeshift side tables on either end of his couch. So many books that Hange doesn’t think she could read them all in the next ten years.

Second of all, Mr. Arlert answers every single one of the sixteen questions she shoots rapid-fire quick at him within minutes of meeting him, and he smiles afterwards like he’s pleased she’s asked and he’s pleased to answer. It’s been a while since anyone’s done that for her, and her heart squeezes a little in response.  _Maybe this time_ , she thinks,  _maybe I can stay_.

Third of all, Mr. Arlert has Armin. Armin, who’s four-and-a-half to Hange’s twelve-and-a-half. Armin, who’s small and blond and blue-eyed and peers out at her from behind his grandfather’s leg. Armin, who’s shy and smart and oh-so-brilliant and doesn’t mind sharing a room with her. Armin, who listens as she chatters nonstop and wakes her up from nightmares and solemnly gets her to promise that when they grow up they’ll live together in a treehouse in a forest. Armin, who’s sweet and perfect and tells people that she’s his sister a mere month after meeting her.

Hange’s never had a sibling before, but one night as she’s reading him a bedtime story—the two of them snuggled up in the top bunk of their bunkbed, cocooned under a tent of blankets, with Armin patiently turning the pages as Hange holds the flashlight and whispers the words out loud—she decides that it’s not too bad a job. In fact, she kinda likes it. In fact, she kinda loves it.

(In fact, she kinda really, really loves Armin.)  

 

* * *

 

Hange will happily beat up anybody who badmouths her adopted home or family, but within a few years, she can’t deny that she’s had ample opportunity to hone her martial arts skills in this neighborhood. The Arlerts live in one of the poorer parts of Mariavale, though thankfully not  _the_ poorest, and Hange grows up street-smart as well as book smart.

“Though not street-smart enough,” Nanaba complains. Her four-floors down neighbor and best friend gives her a side-eyed squint. “Seriously, picking another fight with Sannes and his gang? Not your smartest move.”

“Oh, lay off it, Nanaba. I can handle myself,” Hange tosses back. “‘Sides, they’re the ones who started it.”

“That’s what you always say.”

“That’s because it’s always true!”

The two of them link arms and laugh. They’re young, they’re brash, they’re nigh-invincible—they’re teenagers with the world at their feet and their whole lives ahead of them. What’s the worst that could happen?

 

* * *

 

Hange’s fascinated with soulmarks, mostly because even after forty thousand or so years of human history nobody has any idea how they work. How does the universe decide which people are soulmates? Why is it always the first words spoken, or at the very least the first words communicated once meeting in person? How come if a person’s soulmate is illiterate, they still have a mark? Why do soulmarks fade after your partner dies? What did soulmarks used to be like before writing was invented? Why do some people have more than one soulmate, but no one ever lacks a soulmate?

Grandpa Arlert chuckles whenever Hange starts going off on one of her soulmark tangents, claiming that metaphysics and soul theory are a little too over his head, which Hange knows is complete and utter bull. Still, Armin is happy enough to debate and hypothesize with her, so she’s content.

“Honestly, when I was your age, the only question I had about soulmates was when I’d meet mine,” Grandpa Arlert says.

Hange, seventeen years old and thoroughly blasé about Profanity Dude’s eventual appearance (hey, it was pretty obvious that she couldn’t miss meeting the guy if she tried), only scoffs teasingly. “C’mon, Gramps, that is  _such_  a lie! When you were my age, you’d known Grannie Sarah for three years.”

“Well, when I was Armin's age, then,” he says, smiling at his grandson.

Hange makes a humming noise while Armin sighs wistfully. “You’re so lucky you met her early,” he says. “I’ve got two and I haven’t met either of them yet.”

“Baby, you’re only nine,” Hange says, flicking his forehead. “You've got plenty of time.”

“But you said your parents met when they were five!” Armin argues.

“Yeah, but that's the exception, not the norm. Tell you what, I bet you meet both of your soulmates before I meet mine,” Hange says, wrapping an arm around his narrow shoulders and ruffling his hair. “I mean, we don’t even own a bike yet, do we?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Ah, ah, no buts! It’s a bet! If I meet my soulmate before you meet either of yours, I’ll get you that fancy chess set you want! But if you meet yours first, you have to let me get a cat!”

“But cats hate me!” Armin complains.

Hange shares a laugh with Grandpa Arlert. “Guess my soulmate better hurry up, then,” she says with a wink.

 

* * *

 

As an extension of her fascination with soulmarks, Hange has a collection of photos documenting her family and friends’—well, only if they let her. Gerger's is on his ass and he refuses to let it be caught on film, but Hange pestered him enough to know it reads,  _Wait, did you say Gerber? Like the baby food company? Or Gerger, like it says here on my wrist?_

Nanaba’s loops elegantly around her right ankle,  _Hmmm, your perfume is lovely. Freesias, if I’m not mistaken?_  written in broad, sloping strokes.

Armin has one soulmark on both shoulders. One says,  _Hey, man, you got a pen I can borrow?_  and the other says,  _Ah. It’s you_.

Grandpa Arlert’s soulmark has been a faded, silvery gray since his wife’s death, but the words,  _Um, excuse me, but I think you’re in my seat,_  can still be read on the inside of his left wrist.

In one of the few photos she has left of her parents, the three of them are at the beach, and Hange can see  _Ah! Ah! It’s you!_   _When we grow up, I’m gonna marry you!_  written across her mother’s left collarbone and  _I like your Godzilla shoes! Wanna be friends?_  written across her father’s right.

And, of course, there’s Hange’s own, the four-by-four square inch box of small but painstakingly neat and proper text that adorns her left side, just over her ribs. The handwriting is so orderly and the lines of words so straight that it almost looks like it’s been printed on her, at odds with the crude and rough language it depicts. Sometimes she runs a hand over it and wonders what he’ll be like in person, this soulmate of hers with the abrasive personality and the blunt way of speaking. Will they be lovers? Will they be partners in crime, like her parents used to call each other? She hopes they’ll be friends at the very least; she kinda likes him already, just because he’s so entertaining, but she’s in no hurry to meet him. They’ll find each other when they find each other. In the meantime, she has Armin, and Gramps, and Nanaba, and that's more than enough love for anybody, in her opinion.  

 

* * *

 

The deeper truth is a little more complicated, of course.

You see, part of her is still holding out for her other soulmate, the one whose words she’s missing. The one who she finally,  _finally_  remembers wrote  _the decisiv moment wat the hell r u talking about,_ straight across her skin in messy, ugly, misspelled print. The one she loved and lost in what feels like another life.

That one.

Only two people know about him: Armin, because he’s woken her up enough times from that damn recurring nightmare to know that he has to lift up her shirt, look at her soulmark, and tell her yes, it’s still there, and yes, it’s still black, and yes, he can still read it before she’ll calm down and stop struggling. And he knows not to read what her soulmark  _actually_ says, because otherwise she just gets more agitated, shouting that they’ve stolen his words, his real words,  _Give them back, give them back, give them back_ — _!_

And Nanaba knows, too, because she let it slip that she wasn’t going to fall in love with her soulmate because she was already in love with someone else, so she didn’t care either way if she met him or not.

Nanaba doesn’t say she’s crazy or anything, just goes, “Huh. So you’re waiting on this other soulmate?”

“Yeah.”

“The one you have no proof exists beyond some freaky dreams?”

“Yep.”

“The one whose face you don’t even remember?”

“Sounds about right.”

“Hm. Kinda sad for the soulmate whose words you’ve got.”

Hange blinks, surprised. “Eh? Why?”

“Well, you’ve already written them off before you’ve even met. Unfair, don’t you think?”

“Huh,” Hange says. Maybe Profane Person does deserve a chance, then.

(She’s still got her heart set on Mr. Decisive Moment, though, his name just inches from her lips, just waiting for her to say it and find him, through blood and fear and fire, across worlds and souls and lives.

She knows he’s waiting for her, searching for her, too. He’s got to be.

He’s _got_ to be.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed. Be sure to check out the other awesome works created for LeviHan week. ^^


	2. run for your children, for your sisters and brothers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi doesn’t really buy into the whole soulmates bullshit. Just look how well it worked out for his mother—dumped as soon as she got pregnant, forced to raise a kid by herself in the Underground, running herself ragged as a waitress and a stripper just to keep him fed. And what kinda universe foists somebody like his uncle onto some unsuspecting person? Jeez, he’s glad Kenny’s soulmate had the smarts to bail before he was born; he’s certain things can only go further south where that bastard is concerned.
> 
> Nah, Levi’s only interested in the family he chooses, not the one fate or destiny or whatever chooses for him.
> 
> Unfortunately for him, the universe has other plans.

* * *

 

Levi doesn’t really buy into the whole soulmates bullshit. Just look how well it worked out for his mother—dumped as soon as she got pregnant, forced to raise a kid by herself in the Underground, running herself ragged as a waitress and a stripper just to keep him fed. And what kinda universe foists somebody like his uncle onto some unsuspecting person? Jeez, he’s glad Kenny’s soulmate had the smarts to bail before he was born; he’s certain things can only go further south where that bastard is concerned.

Nah, Levi's only interested in the family  _he_  chooses, not the one fate or destiny or whatever chooses for him. By the time he’s ten, said family consists of three people: his ma, because his ma is an angel. Farlan, because the brat is useful and deals with people so Levi doesn’t have to, so he’s more or less tolerable. And Isabel, because she just won’t leave him alone and somebody has to make sure she doesn’t starve, or else she starts screeching like a banshee, and that's not good for anybody in the neighborhood.

And that’s about all the people Levi wants to deal with for the rest of his life, so everybody else can just fuck off.

Unfortunately for him, the universe has other plans.

 

* * *

 

Levi meets Erwin Smith when he’s twelve and trying to rob the guy’s house. Seven-year-old Isabel’s on lookout and Farlan’s cracking the safe upstairs when Erwin gets back half an hour earlier than expected, so Levi whistles a warning and vaults himself over the couch, rolling to his feet in the hallway before slamming into the kitchen and throwing himself out the narrow window. Once in the backyard, he hops the fence, no sweat, landing like a cat in in the narrow alley behind the house—

—whereupon he skids to a screeching halt ‘cause some bearded giant is holding Farlan and Isabel up by the scruff of their necks.

“Fuck,” he says eloquently.

“Not the word I’d use, but I agree with the sentiment, yes,” says an amused voice, and when Levi whirls around, Erwin is standing right there, demonstrating for the first time (but hardly the last, much to Levi’s permanent disgruntlement) his ability to materialize from thin air like some kind of ghost.

“Fuck,” Levi repeats, and Erwin has the gall to  _laugh_  at him.

 

* * *

 

That’s really the start to Levi’s gymnastics career—Mike, the freakish giant, later spins some bullshit story about a “charity event,” “untapped potential,” blah, blah, blah, just so’s the sports reports get a feel-good story, but he knows the truth.  Erwin got impressed by his escape skills, offered to get him a coach for free at first, much to Kushel Ackerman’s undying gratitude, and then after Levi started winning competitions, scrounged some sponsors up amongst his father’s rich weirdo friends, because apparently it was obvious that Levi was destined to go places.

Whatever. From the moment he stepped onto the mat, Levi knew he was the best. He didn’t need some old farts telling him so. The gold medals were kind of nice, though, he had to admit.

 

* * *

 

Two years after that shitty fateful meeting, Levi comes home from the gym (“interactive sports center,” a voice annoyingly like Erwin’s insists—seriously, can’t he get some peace and quiet in his own head?) to find that there’s a toddler sitting at the table in the kitchen.

He stares at it. It stares back.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he asks.

It—he? she? they?—doesn’t answer with anything other than the psycho slasher stare it’s already got going, so Levi responds in kind.

About five minutes pass like that before his ma walks in and says, “Levi! You’re home!”

“What the hell is this, Ma?” he asks, gesturing at the toddler.

His mother ignores him and picks it up, gracefully setting it on her hip. “Mikasa,” she says to it, “this is your cousin, Levi. He’ll be like a big brother to you.”

Levi stares at her incredulously. “What.”

“He’s going to take very good care of you, I promise.”

“ _What_.”

“Here, Levi, why don’t you try holding her,” his ma said in the tone of voice that meant it was an order and not a suggestion.

“I don’t want to.”

The brat looks like it— _she_ —agrees.

“Levi.”

He holds the toddler. The toddler lets herself be held. They continue to stare at each other warily. Then his ma leaves the room to get her a toy or something, he’s not paying attention, and while she’s gone the runt starts wrinkling her nose.

“What now?” he says.

Her reply is to sneeze right in his goddamn face.

And that was his first meeting with Mikasa fucking Ackerman, a.k.a his demonic monster of a second cousin, a.k.a. the girl his ma took in after her parents died in the crossfire of some gangs’ turf war, a.k.a. the brat he has to take care of because they’re family and that’s what you do.

So, fine, he takes care of her—the scrawny ingrate.

(“Oh, but you love Mikasa!”

“Shut it, four-eyes.”)

 

* * *

 

Gymnastics costs a hell of a lot of money, time, sweat, etc., etc., and it's not exactly a sport that’s rolling in dough, especially for  _male_  gymnasts—if Levi hadn’t been so good at it, it wouldn’t pay at all. And it’s not like he gets paid for the sport itself, so much as he gets paid for sponsorships and endorsements.

Thankfully, three silver medals and four gold medals over the course of two Olympics means he’s visible enough to be valuable, and by the time he retires at age twenty-eight, he’s paid for a new house for his ma, most of Mikasa’s schooling, and his own college tuition. He’s also got a guaranteed job as a coach for the gymnastics team at Sina Central University, courtesy of Erwin, who’s head of the athletics committee.

All in all, not bad for a kid from the Tri-Cities’ slums.

 

* * *

 

Much to his annoyance, Levi is famous enough within the gymnastics community that he occasionally has to give interviews—Mike’s hammered enough press etiquette into his head over the years that he can more or less make it through one without murdering anybody, but it’s never pleasant. And they always, inevitably ask about his personal life.

“It’s private,” is his usual default, since Mike informs him that “Fuck off and die,” just doesn’t cut it. Sometimes he shares the fact that he was raised by a single mom; sometimes he talks a little about Erwin or Mike or even Isabel; sometimes Farlan nags him enough that he name-drops him to reporters his friend would find attractive; sometimes he mentions that he’s got a kid cousin, a real brat, and that she’s also in sports—fencing, though, not gymnastics. (But seriously, why the hell did  _Mikasa_ get all the height in their family, huh? His mother’s a midget; she could at least have the decency to show solidarity and be one, too.)

Anytime the questions roll around to his soulmate, however, is usually the time Erwin pulls his teleporting trick and whisks Levi off before he can take the nearest microphone or other recording device and shove it up the reporter’s ass.

 

* * *

 

Levi’s mark came in when he was around three years old. His mother can’t tell him the exact date since apparently he had a high enough pain tolerance not to start wailing once the letters wrote themselves across his skin. She didn’t notice he’d gotten his mark until she was giving him a bath and the smudge across the inside of his right thigh wouldn’t come off. That was September 8th, so his soulmate could’ve been born in August for all he knew.

Not that it matters much. Again, he didn’t really believe in soulmates; he’d seen enough such relationships fall apart to know that humans were dumb-asses who would screw up even the closest thing they had to a sure shot. It happens even to decent people—take Erwin, for example. His soulmate’s married to  _Nile Dawk_. And that doesn’t even address the problems of finding your soulmate in the first place—Mike’s mark is a one-word  _Yes,_  inscribed on his right wrist, which means his soulmate’s going to be almost impossible to track down. (At least it explains why he sniffs people and describes their scent upon meeting them, so he’s bound to be distinctive.)

There are a few exceptions, of course. Farlan and Isabel have each other, though Levi’s hard-pressed to say whether they’re destined to be friends, lovers, or mortal enemies. Mikasa’s got that scruffy kid Eren, whom she met when they were ten, but there’s still no telling whether her  _other_  soulmate’s any good.

Levi’s nearly twenty-nine, and there’s still no sign of the man or woman who’s written  _Watch out, watch out, watch out!_  in cramped, messy writing on his skin, and he’s content to keep it that way.

 

* * *

 

Sometime after he hits puberty—right around the time he meets Erwin, actually—Levi starts having nightmares: bloody, scream-filled scenes straight out of a horror movie, one with truly bad visual effects, but he’s never scared when he’s in them—just exhausted and strangely resigned, like his brain’s decided this is the default setting, the natural order.

It really pisses him off that it’s when he  _wakes up_ that he’s terrified—his room’s always too quiet, the darkness too threatening, and his hands inevitably grope for weapons that aren’t there. It always takes him a second or two to orient himself, and then he flops back onto the mattress and tries to get some more sleep, grumbling about the sheer uselessness of a brain that can’t manage to give him normal nightmares, like ones about falling endlessly or showing up naked to school or hell, even ones about car crashes like Isabel complains about. No, instead it's swords and giants and death, but at least it’s over when he wakes up.

He does have… _other_  dreams, though. Not sex dreams, though he will admit he’s usually naked in them, and in bed with someone else, but if anything they’re post-sex dreams. A woman’s sprawled along his back, chuckling in his ear, and she’s got a hand tracing the inside of his thigh. It’s more affectionate than desire-driven, and it takes a few times to realize she’s brushing her fingers over his words—over  _her_  words.

“Hey,” she says, pushing her face against his shoulder, and even in the dream he’s glad she can’t see his face because he’s pretty sure he’s grinning like an idiot, “you got a second? I saw it, you know. The decisive moment.”

“Those are the shittiest first words ever,” he tells her, rolling over to face her, and he catches a glimpse of tan skin, a prominent nose, a wide, wide smile—

—and then he wakes up. Every. Single. Time.

He’s not sure what’s worse, the nightmares that seem like they’ll never end or the dreams he finds himself wishing he could stay in forever, but either way he’s glad he doesn’t have them often.


	3. stock still, no turning back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “No, you may not build a Frankenstein lab,” Nanaba says. “You still have three years of med school to finish.”
> 
> “But, Nanaba!”
> 
> “No buts, Hange.”
> 
> “Aw, you’re no fun,” she says, throwing herself back against her seat.

* * *

 

For nearly ten years after being taken in by the Arlerts, life is good to Hange.

Sure, she’s from the rough part of town, but she and Nanaba and Gerger can handle themselves fine. And yeah, sometimes her family’s tight on money, but Gramps’s job at the factory pays enough to keep her and Armin clothed and fed, which is all the social workers care about. Hange gets a part-time job waitressing at the local bar to cover some of the expenses, which is especially useful after she turns eighteen and the government cuts off the monthly stipend that Gramps got on her behalf. It’s not exactly above-the-table pay, but it  _is_ money and Hange’s not picky. She gets good grades, gets a scholarship to Roseton Tech, commutes from their apartment in Mariavale to cut on costs, takes classes in the summer, and finishes her undergrad in three years instead of four, graduating at the top of her class. That, combined with skipping third grade back in the day, means that Hange is twenty when she starts med school. Gramps and Armin are so proud that Hange’s literally heard them telling strangers at the corner store about her—not that she’s got much room to talk. Half the people she knows about her “genius baby brother” within an hour of meeting her; the other half know within  _two_  hours.

 

* * *

 

She’s twenty-one when Gramps is diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. The doctors say it was probably due to chemical exposure from the factory he worked at. Hange’s hands shake when they tell her, and she has to fight down the urge to scream at them, to punch a wall until her knuckles bleed, to race over to the factory and burn it all down to the ground. Instead, she nods, wraps an arm around Armin’s trembling shoulders, and watches their grandfather die slowly over the course of three months.

The day he dies, they beg the nurses to let them take him up to the roof garden, and Hange and Armin dress him in his old favorite hat and his old favorite coat, and watch clouds with him until he takes his last breath.

Hange can barely see through her tears to watch his soulmark fade from gray to white.

 

* * *

 

The insurance and the pay-out from Grandpa Arlert’s employers ( _blood money_ , her mind whispers, but she has to take it because how else will they get through this?) barely covers the hospital fees and the funeral expenses. Hange stares at the bills and the rent, does the numbers and the math, and comes to some sad conclusions about her odds of finishing med school.

One night, Armin’s cooking dinner and trying his best not to burn it, and Hange’s job hunting, typing up a résumé, and gnawing anxiously on her knuckles when the doorbell of their apartment rings.

“Oh, no,” Hange says, exchanging a wild-eyed glance with Armin. There’s only one person it could be: Social Services. “Oh, no, oh, no, not yet, not yet—it’s too soon. Shit!”

She gets up and sweeps a critical eye over the living room, noting the haphazard pile of books and dirty clothes on the floor, the trash in the corner, the remnants of several nights of take-out and leftovers from the bar congealing on the coffee table. And Armin—Armin looks frail and skinny and tired, practically swimming in an oversized sweater of Gramps’s and a pair of Hange’s pajama bottoms, and Hange would say he looks closer to eleven than thirteen-and-a-half. His cheekbones are too sharp, his shoulders too narrow, his wrists too bony, the circles under his eyes too dark, everything about him suggesting that he’s neglected and malnourished and not being properly taken care of at all. Hange herself can’t look much better, and she thinks that she's going to have to take Armin and run if they declare her an unfit guardian. But what if the case worker decides to place him elsewhere right now? What if they take him from her tonight?

“I’ll meet you at the library on Friday if things go badly,” Armin whispers, reading her mind, and she's never been so grateful for his similarly swift powers of deduction as she is right now. She stretches out a hand and squeezes his tightly. His fingers tremble in her hold, and she has to fight down the insane urge to slam open the door so it knocks out the social worker and she can tie them up in the closet while she and Armin get the hell out of town.

The doorbell rings again, and Hange realizes she’s been formulating plans and imagining scenarios all in the space of a minute. “Just a second!” she cries out, and she and Armin hastily shove things under the couch and into the closet in a scene reminiscent of that one  _Pride & Prejudice_ movie Gerger's so fond of. The absurdity of the whole thing strikes her, and next thing she knows, she and Armin are giggling hysterically, trying to muffle the sound while they  _literally_  sweep dirt under the rug. They end up having to stomp on a few uneven corners to smooth them out, but as Hange gives one last glance over the living room, she decides it's as good as it's ever going to get. With that, she walks over to the door and throws it open.

“Hi!” she says, pasting what she hopes is a polite, welcoming, and completely-and-totally-fit-to-be-a-legal-guardian-of-a-minor smile on her face. “You must be Mr. Ferman! We’ve been expecting you! Please come insi—oh, there’s two of you.”

The two men waiting in the hallway are dressed in professional, understated black suits that nevertheless look extremely well-tailored.  _Huh. Social Services must have upgraded since I aged out_ , Hange thought to herself.  _Unless…_

“Neither of you are Mr. Ferman, are you?” she says.

The men exchange puzzled glances, and the taller one clears his throat. “No, we are not. I’m Mr. Bell, and this is Mr. Schuster; we are representatives from Rorschach & Niemeyer, the firm currently acting as the legal executors of the late Mr. Otto Hange. Are we correct in assuming this the residence of Zoë Hange…?”

Hange exchanges a puzzled glance of her own with Armin. “Uh, yes…?”

“May we come inside?” Mr. Bell asks.

“Um, sure.” She opens the door wide—well, as wide as the pile of clutter immediately behind it allows. “Please make yourselves comfortable,” she says, trying for another smile.

From the looks of trepidation on their faces, she must fail miserably.

 

* * *

 

This is honestly the most awkward non-conversation Hange’s ever had with anyone in her entire life. Mr. Bell and Mr. Schuster are sitting side-by-side on their ratty couch, and Mr. Bell looks quietly horrified by the upholstery; Hange suspects he’d have sanitized it before sitting if he had the chance. Mr. Schuster is much better at hiding his disgust, if he even feels disgust, but the way he’s staring intently at her face is sort of creeping her out. She tightens her hold on Armin’s shoulder; her baby brother is sitting in the squishy chair across from their guests, and Hange’s leaning against the armrest since they don't have any other seats.

They spend about another twenty seconds in stilted silence before Mr. Bell clears his throat and says, “As I’m sure you are aware, your family has always been one of the most valued and loyal clients Rorschach & Niemeyer have had the pleasure to serve over the years.”

Hange was  _not_  aware of this, but she still says, “Indeed.”

Because that seems like the thing to say. In situations like this, she means. Not that she's often been in situations like this, because, again, strangest non-conversation—well, actual conversation now that Mr. Bell's started talking— _strangest conversation_ she’s ever had. And that’s including the time she got Gerger to tell her where his soulmark is located.

 _Anyway_.

Armin nods knowingly beside her, and Hange’s pathetically grateful for his bluffing skills, even if she usually curses how good they are since it means he always beats her at poker. But for the moment, yes, let’s have them both pretend they actually know what the heck is going on. A united front is a strong front, and all that.  

Mr. Bell and Mr. Schuster relax infinitesimally now that they’re past that initial hurdle. Mr. Bell clears his throat again. “Good, good. We of course hope to continue such a mutually beneficial partnership, mm…But, ah, before we begin the rest of the proceedings, I would like to confirm that you are indeed Zoë Hange, daughter of Frederick and Miranda Hange?”

“Yes,” Hange says, hiding her surprise at hearing her parents’ names; it’s been forever since anyone’s referred to her as their daughter instead of “the Arlert girl.” It really looks like these guys aren’t here for Armin at all.

“And your parents passed away ten years ago?” Mr. Bell asks.

“Yes,” Hange repeats.

“And since then you passed into the care of the state system, until being permanently placed with—” Mr. Bell glances down at his folder “—Mr. Arthur Arlert?”

She and Armin both flinch. “Yes,” Hange says after a moment. “He took very good care of me.”

“And I see that he is also—”

“Deceased, yes,” Hange says.

Silence descends upon their odd little gathering. Mr. Schuster subtly knocks his elbow against Mr. Bell’s.

Mr. Bell clears his throat again. “But, ah, he passed away after you came of age?”

“Yes.”

“And he never, ah, formally adopted you?”

Hange reminds herself to unclench her jaw before speaking: “No.” Formally adopting her would’ve meant that the state would’ve stopped sending money, and she didn’t want to do that to the Arlerts. She didn’t need a piece of paper to tell her she was part of their family anyway.

Mr. Bell nods. “Therefore, you still legally retain the Hange name, correct?”

“Correct,” Hange says, baring her teeth in the expression that got her dubbed “Mad Dog Hange” at the bar she works at.

Mr. Schuster moves his briefcase so that it forms a little barrier between them.

“Wonderful,” Mr. Bell says, eyes shifting nervously. “Then let me be the first to congratulate you on being the sole beneficiary of your great-uncle’s, the late Mr. Otto Hange’s, will.”

Hange blinks. “Wait, what?” she says at the same time Armin asks, “Did you say  _will_?”

Mr. Bell opens his mouth, presumably to reply, but Mr. Schuster beats him to the punch. “Look, Miss Hange,” he says in a surprisingly nasal voice, “Mr. Hange died two months ago, and we’ve spent the last fifty-eight days searching for any possible heirs, which was, frankly speaking, a living nightmare. Mr. Hange’s will specifically states that the entirety of his estate  _must_  go to the closest living relative with the Hange surname. In addition, this relative must be unmarried, below the age of forty-one, and have lived in both the city of Mariavale and the city of Roseton for any number of years exceeding three, but _not_  have lived in the city of Sina for any number of years exceeding one. This relative must never have visited the country of Trost; never have practiced the professions of architecture, plumbing, or interior design; never have legally co-habitated with an acupuncturist, a lumberjack, and/or a thespian; and never have been formally baptized in the Church of the Wall. This relative must also not have the first names Gertrude, Emilio, Thomas, Alexander, Marybeth, or Frederick— _especially_  Frederick, in fact. The will was very emphatic about that.”

“But that was my father's name,” Hange points out after exchanging confused glances with Armin.  _What the hell kind of person has a will like this?_  Hange thinks.

“But it’s not  _your_  name, Miss Hange,” Mr. Schuster says. “And the will never specified that the offspring of any Fredericks be excluded.”

“Though I maintain it was heavily implied,” Mr. Bell murmurs.

Mr. Schuster ignores him. “The thing is, your great-uncle had alienated nearly every single living member of his nominal family tree by the time he died, not that there were very many of them to begin with. In fact, besides you, there are only two other Hanges, neither of whom qualify because Otto Hange literally would’ve preferred Satan to get his money before either Thomas or Emilio got their hands on it. That’s why the will is so specific.”  

“I see,” Hange says, smiling a little. “Great-uncle Otto sounds like he was kinda prepared for every eventuality. I wish I could've met him.”

Mr. Schuster smiles back, and upon seeing the crooked edge to it, Hange abruptly decides she likes the man. “Oh, that’s not even the half of it, Miss Hange,” he says.

“Well, what's the other half?” Armin asks.

“Please come to our offices tomorrow, and you’ll see.” 

 

* * *

 

“…is it just me, or are there six zeroes before that decimal point?” Armin says, staring at the neat little balance sheet that apparently summarizes the entirety of Otto Hange’s liquid assets. “And is that really a five, or is it actually a very squiggly one, because there is no way you just inherited  _five million dollars_.”

“This  _has_  to be a scam,” Hange says. Okay, they were in a really, really nice building, and so far nobody had asked for her credit card number, and the only documents required were her driver’s license and her birth certificate to prove her identity—but still! She just inherited five million dollars from a cantankerous great-uncle that she didn’t even know existed! It was too good to be true!

“Well, I say!” Mr. Bell says, affronted.

“Calm down, Ed, anybody would be surprised,” Mr. Schuster.  

Mr. Bell harrumphs. Hange and Armin continue to look at the piece of paper that represents the sum of the worldly goods they now own, besides the $751.81 Hange has in her bank account.

“Holy shit, I’m finishing med school,” Hange whispers.

“Zoë, we’re  _millionaires_ ,” Armin says, “We could  _buy_  your med school.”

Mr. Schuster shrugs. “Unlikely, but maybe if you sell your properties, you could afford it.”

“Wait,  _properties_? As in, plural?” Hange squeaks at the same time Armin says, “You mean there’s  _more_?”

Mr. Bell sniffs. “Of course. The majority of the Otto Hange estate is tied up in investments and real estate. The grand total of your inheritance, Miss Hange, comes out to an estimated forty million dollars.”

Hange sits down. Armin sits down with her.

“I…I can build a Frankenstein lab!” Hange says. “I can bring back the velociraptors! Mwahahahahahaha! Watch out, world! The dinosaur-zombie apocalypse comes!”

Mr. Schuster edges his briefcase between them again. Armin just pats her on the knee.

 

* * *

 

“No, you may not build a Frankenstein lab,” Nanaba says. “You still have three years of med school to finish.”

“But, Nanaba!”

“No buts, Hange.”

“Aw, you're no fun,” she says, throwing herself back against her seat.

“Jesus,” Gerger mutters, peering at the passing street signs, “how far did you say this place was?”

“Uh, turn right after three streets,” Armin says, consulting his brand-new smartphone. Hange still can’t believe she can literally walk into any store and buy him anything he wants. It's  _great_. “…and then…it says our destination should be at the end of the cul-de-sac.”

“Right, right,” Gerger says, concentrating on his driving. His truck, while secondhand, is still new to him and he’d saved up for years to buy it, so Hange understands the caution.

Hange pats him on the shoulder. “Hey, man, thanks for helping us move everything. I couldn’t have done it without you guys.”

Nanaba scoffs. “What, did Rorschacker and Niedermeyer’s goons not have any movers to recommend?”

“Nope!” Hange says in a sing-song voice. “No movers as good as you two!”

Gerger and Nanaba exchange smiles through the rearview mirror, with the former shaking his head. “Seriously, I can't believe you guys have, like, lawyers to boss around. And you inherited a whole house! One in Northside! That's some prime real estate, man.”

Hange grins at him. “Dude, we have houses in three countries. This one’s just the closest.”

Gerger whistles, impressed. “Seriously? Man, that is  _sick_.”

“Tell me about it.” Hange sticks her head out the window as they make the turn, craning her neck to catch the first glimpse of their new place. “Oh my god!" she shrieks. “It’s beautiful!”

“Oh my god,” Gerger echoes, slowing down as he parks in the house’s driveway. “It’s like the creepy haunted house from every horror movie ever made.”

“Well,” Nanaba says dryly, surveying the looming Victorian-Gothic façade before them, “at least this way we know for sure that the guy who owned this place was related to Hange.”

“Oh my god, that's a  _gargoyle over the window!_  Armin! It’s a  _gargoyle! We have gargoyles!_ ” Hange screams, shaking her brother in excitement.

“Yup.  _Definitely_  related.”

 

* * *

 

Over the course of the next few days, they discover that the house has:

Four flours, including a basement and an attic.

Six bedrooms.

Three bathrooms.

A library and study.

One kitchen containing both a refrigerator and an old-fashioned icebox, currently preserving what Gerger is convinced are human organs.

A sitting room with what Nanaba says is ugly mahogany furniture.

A dining room, complete with silver-plated china and more types of eating utensils than Hange was aware existed.

Several rooms filled with artifacts devoted to scientific and historical enquiry, including but not limited to: over a hundred insect and arachnid specimens, mostly butterflies, but also multiple scorpions and a tarantula that nearly gave Gerger a heart attack when he saw it; a collection of rocks and minerals, including several geodes that made Armin’s eyes shine and a gold nugget that Hange promptly named “Precioussssss”; fossils and petrified plants, which Nanaba had to pry out of Hange’s hands so she wouldn’t sleep with them; an entire human skeleton that Gerger swears belonged to a murder victim, despite Armin pointing out a plaque that said Marcus Hange III had generously donated his remains to science; several brains in jars, which Nanaba refused to touch with a ten-foot pole; framed maps that Gerger suggested they sell on Antiques Roadshow; and what appears to be an armory with weapons from at least three different centuries, including an axe that nearly decapitated Armin and which Hange subsequently tossed out a window—the thing got lodged in a tree and wouldn’t come out, so Gerger claims they’ve officially moved in now that they added the axe-murderer feel to the house.

Outside, there's a garage with a state-of-the-art, small-scale chemistry lab, but no car. And, finally, a backyard with strange, deformed topiary sculptures and a greenhouse with lots of plants, including carnivorous Venus flytraps and pitcher plants.

“This is my dream house,” Hange declares happily, lying facedown on the thousand-thread-count cotton sheets in the master bedroom.

“Yeah, it's a nightmare place, that’s for sure,” Gerger says. “Ow! Hange, get your elbow off of me! You’re bonier than the mummy in the living room!” 

 

* * *

 

“Hey, Armin?”

“Yeah, Zoë?”

“You think you could be happy here?”

“…yeah. You?”

“Yeah! Of course!”

“Well, that’s good, I guess.”

“…”

“…”

“I think Gramps would’ve loved this place. My parents, too. And your parents! Don’t you think?”

“Yeah. I think they would’ve.”

“Mm. Hey, Armin?”

“What?”

“I think they probably sent us this place. You know. Wherever they are. Just to watch out for us. What do you think?”

“Ha! Yeah, that’s something Gramps would do.”

“Mmhm! Either that, or we did something really, really good in a past life, huh?”

“Haha, yeah. Maybe we saved the world or something.”

“Heh, I bet we kicked butt while doing it.”

“Yeah…”

“…”

“…hey, Zoë?”

“Mm?”

“I love you, you know.”

“I love you, too, baby.”

 

* * *

 

An overview of the next five years:

Hange continues med school. Armin starts high school, and occasionally comes home with bruises that he won’t tell Hange how he got; Hange contemplates breaking her vow to never beat up people younger than herself. She ends up not having to do so, however, since Armin makes friends with a girl named Annie and her two soulmates, Reiner and Bertolt. Annie's father runs a boxing gym, and she's his prize student; Reiner and Bertolt are on the soccer team, and have the muscles to show for it. In the weeks after Armin first brings them home, his sudden case of bruises and “clumsiness” mysteriously ends. Hange makes sure to drive him to every boxing match and soccer game they can make as thanks, and she becomes known as “that crazy cheering lady with the glasses” as a result.

Nanaba becomes a landscape architect, and in their downtime, she and Hange keep up the skills they developed in high school by photographing the places she fixes up. To nobody’s surprise, Gerger becomes a bartender at a place in downtown Mariavale. To everybody’s surprise, the owner of the bar he works at is his soulmate, Lynne. Nanaba and Hange immediately adopt her into their ranks, and Hange adds Lynne’s matching soulmark to her collection:  _Hey, I’m your new man! I mean, I’m your new man behind bars! Wait, I meant_ ** _bar_** _, as in_ ** _this_** _bar, as in—oh god. Just call me Gerger_. They get married two years later.

Hange graduates, and starts her residency at Mariavale General Hospital, specializing in infectious diseases. She becomes good friends with one of her fellow residents, a friendly and fondly exasperated guy named Moblit. He doesn't quite share her enthusiasm for the more vicious and fascinating retroviruses, but he  _does_  share her love of really, really strong black coffee and pancake-and-bacon sandwiches from the café down the block, and bemoans the lack of sleep they get as first year newbies. Hange also takes one of the nurses under her wing, Nifa, whose love of fashion results in Hange’s wardrobe graduating from “I-found-these-jeans-in-the-bin-and-they-fit-me-so-I-wore-them” to “I-shop-at-vintage-thrift-stores-and-look-quirky-but-comfy-and-occasionally-stylish.” Moblit's soulmark is on his left shoulder and reads,  _I think it’s going to rain today, don't you?_  in whimsical, slanted cursive. Nifa’s soulmark is on the nape of her neck and says, _Huh. Wow. Um, okay, hear me out. I'm sure that as a spectacularly beautiful woman, you have people claiming to be your soulmate all the time, but I really_ ** _am_** _your soulmate, so please give me a chance_.  _Please._ Hange takes photos of them both within months of meeting them.

Hange gets through her first year of residency, and slogs through her second. Meanwhile, after much confusion and miscommunication and drama, as teenage romances are wont to fall prey to, Annie and Armin begin dating. Later that year, Armin gets Hange one of those hairless cats she's always wanted for her birthday.

“Eh? But you hate cats!” Hange says, surprised.

Armin smiles sheepishly at his feet. “Nah, they just hate me. But, you know, you bet that I would meet my soulmates before you met yours, and, uh…well, Annie doesn't have my words, but I  _feel_  like…like I want her to be mine anyway, so. Yeah. I thought it would only be fair.”

As a result, Hange’s crying in the first-ever picture she takes with the newly-christened Bean, Armin smiling on her left side and Annie smirking on her right. In return, Hange adopts a Labrador retriever mix for Armin, names it Sunny, and promptly rethinks her decision since the dog’s favorite form of exercise is running at the crack of dawn. Without a leash. Having just jumped over the fence. Making Hange or Armin chase him through their neighborhood.

“Ahhhh! You’re lucky you’re so cute!” Hange says every time it happens, which is about seventeen more times than anybody wants it to.

Then Hange finishes her residency. Armin and the rest finish high school. Nanaba takes up kick-boxing, Lynne and Gerger start looking for a house with a backyard, Nifa becomes a licensed midwife, and Moblit’s hair starts going gray from stress. Both he and Hange get offered positions at Sina Medical and Research Center, and they take them because Dot Pixis runs the place and he’s got beautiful, beautiful laboratories. Besides, Darius Zackly, their Chief of Medicine at Mariavale General, gives off major creeper vibes and they don’t want to stay longer than they have to.

So—it’s been five years since Gramps died. Hange’s a doctor now; she’s got a great job, a fantastic house, friends she laughs with and loves, and a family she adores. She runs in marathons, donates ridiculous amounts of money to cancer research, has nerd-gasms while studying disease-causing bacteria and viruses, visits the cemetery twice a month, goes on a couple dates once in a blue moon, binge-watches sci-fi shows with Armin, walks her dog, feeds her cat, and generally lives a kick-ass life.

She’s twenty-five-and-a-half years old, and no one’s said her words yet.

But they will. 

 

* * *

 

(And still, every year like clockwork, that old nightmare wakes her up shaking and terrified and with her left side burning, reminding her of everything she’s lost.

“We’ve got to stop doing this,” she whispers to no one who can hear, her hand pressed to her ribs like she can cradle her breaking heart.)


	4. like a bullet to the back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following the laws of physics, with which she has intimate theoretical knowledge, Hange suddenly becomes a speeding object in motion unable to stop unless she 
> 
> A) Runs out of forward momentum
> 
> or
> 
> B) Hits something.
> 
> Thanks to an unsuspecting figure directly at the bottom of the hill, Hange puts all her money on option B.

* * *

  

For reasons completely inexplicable to Hange, Armin decides to attend Sina Central University—and  _dorm_  there.

“But why?” she cries.

“They have a spectacular pre-law program, Zoë,” Armin says. “We’ve talked about this.”

Hange waves her arms. “But why are you moving out? It’s only thirty minutes from here by train! I could even drive you in the mornings, if you want! It’ll only be a fifteen-minute walk to campus from Sina Med! You could look at bacteria with me before your classes! You like that, don't you? Albert’s growing quite devious in his petri dish, you know, and Gustav is almost—” Hange sees Armin’s eyes glaze over and switches tactics “—or, on the other hand, youuuu, uh, you can hang out in the coma patients’ rooms! They’ve got cable, I think.”

Armin shoots her a look. “Zoë.”

“It’s free cable!” she insists.

“Zoë,” Armin says, leaning his head against her shoulder. “I just want to spread my wings a little. I’m not abandoning you. Promise.”

Hange tears up and clutches him to her shoulder. He’s about the same height as her now, gangly and probably still growing, but beginning to fill in his frame, and she is completely and utterly unready for this empty nest business. “Armiiiiiiiiiin!” she wails.

He pats her hair consolingly. “Come on, sis, it’s not like I’m moving across the country.”

“You’re moving to Sina! For three-quarters of the year! For four years! If Great-uncle Otto were deciding your inheritance, you’d get nothing!” Hange says.

Armin laughs at her, the idiot.

Still, when August rolls around, Hange’s there helping him move into the tiny dorm room that he’ll share with his mysterious roommate, with Gerger and Nanaba tagging along as muscle.

“What if he’s a serial killer?” Hange asks.

“ _Zoë_.”

“I’m serious! His last name is Jaegar, which means ‘hunter’! He’d be perfect for the job,” Hange insists.

“Hange, I’m pretty sure Annie already hacked into the database and made sure the kid was clean. It’ll be fine,” Nanaba says.

“Oh my god, would she actually do that?” Gerger's slightly muffled thanks to the boxes he's carrying, but the horrified tone comes across clearly.

“Well, she’s from the Southside, just like us. I wouldn't put it past her, especially now that she’s in the police academy and has access to that sort of thing,” Nanaba muses.

“Oh my god,” Gerger repeats.

Hange grins at him. “Look at the bright side—if we ever need someone to help us cover up a murder, I’m sure Annie’s got our backs.”

“Zoë!” Armin protests, but Hange sees him grinning, too.

While arguing the pros and cons of having a future cop for a girlfriend, they get all of Armin’s stuff moved in and unpacked a few minutes after noon. Soon it's just Hange and her baby brother standing in his dorm room, both of them struggling not to cry.

“You’ll call me if you need anything, right?” Hange says.

“Yeah,” Armin answers, sniffling.

“And you’ll come home every other weekend? Or—or even every three weekends.”

“Of course,” Armin promises.

“I mean, I know Annie’s apartment is nearby, but she’ll be sharing it with Reiner and Bertolt, so if you guys need a quiet place for some alone time, you know I can always spend a few extra hours in the lab with Moblit and Albert—”

“Oh my god, don’t even,” Armin says, mock-horrified, but he’s closer to laughter than tears, so Hange feels better about leaving him, and wraps him in a super-tight hug.

“I love you, baby,” she says.

“I love you, too,” Armin replies, and they stand there for a few seconds.

Then a teenage boy with messy brown hair and wide green eyes sticks his head past the door and says, “Hey, man, you got a pen I can borrow?”

“Can you not see that we are having a moment!” Armin shouts back, the words muffled against Hange’s shoulder. Hange can see the stranger’s eyes go wide, and she gasps in realization a second before he yells, “Dude! Dude, it’s you!”

“What’s me?” Armin grumbles, but the kid is already there, grabbing him by the shoulders. “Hey! Excuse me, I’m talking to my sister here!”

“It’s me!” the boy says, laughing. “I’m your—I’m your—unless—oh, wow, unless you don’t have my words.” He catches hold of Armin’s wrists, turning them upward to see if he can see his soulmarks. “Ah, not there, huh?”

“What are you talking about?" Armin says, thoroughly confused.

Hange laughs. “Baby,” she says, placing her hand on his right shoulder, right over the mark this boy left on her brother, “I am pleased to introduce ‘Hey, man, you got a pen I can borrow?’ Also known as your first soulmate.”

Armin’s eyes go comically wide. “Oh,” he says, sitting down on his bed.

“Yeah.” The other boy’s eyes crinkle as he grins. He sticks out his hand for Armin to shake. “I’m Eren Jaegar. Your soulmate. And, uh, I guess your roommate, too. You must be Armin Arlert.” The way he says her brother’s name makes it sound as if he’s practicing it in preparation for the rest of his life, and Hange can't help grinning, too.

“Uh, yes, I am,” Armin says, still dazed, but when he catches Hange's eye, he abruptly straightens. “Oh! Sorry! Um, this is my sister, Zoë. Zoë, this is Eren.”

“Nice to meet you,” Eren says, gripping her hand enthusiastically.

 _Oh my god, he's adorable!_ Hange thinks. “Pleasure,” she says out loud.

“Ha! Wow, Mikasa’s gonna be so jealous, and—Mikasa!” Eren looks like he's been struck by a lightning bolt, and he tugs Armin up from his seat. “Oh, man, come on, we gotta go, we gotta go right now—”

A pretty middle-aged woman pokes her head into the room, much the same way Eren did a few minutes earlier, and Hange can instantly see the family resemblance. “Eren, darling, you still need to fill out—oh, hello.” She smiles at the three of them. “I'm Carla Jaegar. You must be Armin and his family. Sorry to bother, but we’ll be needing Eren for just a—”

“Hey, Mom, I want you to meet my soulmate,” Eren declares.

Carla blinks. “Oh, my. Um, hello,” she says, looking questioningly from Hange to Armin.

Her husband appears behind her a second later. “Eren, the paperwork’s not going to file itself—”

“Dad, meet my soulmate. Armin, meet my dad. Parents, this is my soulmate’s sister, Miss Zoë. Miss Zoë, ma’am, these are my parents. Aaaand right now we’ve got to get going or Mikasa will kill me, so bye, have fun talking!” Eren literally drags Armin off, waving over his shoulder and ignoring her brother’s protests as he does so, leaving Hange standing in a small, cramped room with a pair of strangers.

So Hange does what she does best: she smiles and prepares to learn a little more about her world. “Well, that was unexpected! Is he always like that, or is it just the excitement?” she asks.

“Uh…” Mr. Jaegar begins. “Much as I would like to claim otherwise, yes, Eren is always like that.”

Hange’s smile widens. “Then I’m sure we'll learn to love him,” she declares. “Now, who is Mikasa…?” 

 

* * *

 

Mikasa Ackerman is a world-class fencer, a tentative mechanical engineering major, and Armin’s other soulmate. She and Eren met when they were ten, compared their marks, and deduced that they had the same third thanks to Armin’s neat yet distinctive handwriting. Armin's words on her read,  _I’m so sorry for intruding, but he just dragged me here and I don’t know why_ , to which the answer was Armin’s corresponding,  _Ah, it’s you_.

It only takes a few more meetings with her and Eren for Hange to decide that, yes, they were adorable, yes, they’d be good to Armin, yes, she loved them already, yes, let’s induct them immediately into her family.

(Annie, on the other hand, takes a considerably longer time to decide anything of the sort, but that’s a different story.)

 

* * *

 

It’s the end of September when Hange decides to get Armin a bike.

“You need one!” she insists. “You’re always talking about how it takes you forever to get to your classes, and I’m not surprised. SCU’s a huge campus.”

“I can just walk,” Armin mutters. “Knowing me, I’ll just crash into something and crack my head open.”

Hange waves away his concern. “We’ll get you a helmet, too. Now, do you want to go for blue or gray, or do you want to be fancy and get matte-black with racer stripes?”

Armin ignores her. “Eren and Mikasa don’t have bikes.”

“Oh, right. Do you want me to get them some, too?” Hange says absent-mindedly, displaying what Annie has dubbed her “sugar mama tendencies,” meaning that her years of poverty taught Hange to be extremely frugal when it comes to herself, but that the largess of her inheritance makes her remarkably amenable to spending money on the people she loves, especially Armin. Or on her lab, her greenhouse, and the growing Hange Science Collection, all of whose expenses tend to be more expensive than whatever jacket or game system Hange had intended to buy for Armin in the first place, so he usually ends up giving in and letting her spoil him…

…which she does any time she’s stressed. Like right now, when she and Moblit are five weeks into examining a mysterious new virus and have nothing to show for it.

So Armin sighs and says, “No, just get one for me.” He pauses, then asks, thoughtful: “Do they have any in green?”

 

* * *

 

They  _do_  have one in green, a nice model with several gear shifts, good brakes, a shelf at the back, and a cute basket in front—perfect for Armin, if she does say so herself. Reiner helps her pick out a matching helmet, and Bertolt gives his opinion on which types of locks are most effective and easy to use, while Annie advises she install a tracking system to be on the safe side, casually suggesting which security company to go to.

Hange’s halfway through purchasing it in her name before Nanaba tells her not to: “It’s creepy.”

“Eh?”

“He wanted independence, didn’t he? How can he be independent if you track his every move?”

“Oh, right.” A thought strikes her, and she brightens. “Ah! I’ll just put it in his name, and he can track his bike himself.”

Nanaba shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

All the extra features mean that the bike gets delivered to Hange’s house, and she decides that instead of waiting to give it to Armin the next time he visits home, she’ll just drop it off at his dorm during her lunch break at work. After all, she reasons, it’s only a fifteen-minute walk to SCU from Sina Med—it’ll be even faster on a bike. This way she can give it a test run, make sure everything’s in working order. What could possibly go wrong?

 

* * *

 

Well, lots of things apparently. Hange loses track of time, and next thing she knows, it’s four a.m. and the bike is still in the back of her truck.

“Oh, shoot!” she says, sitting bolt upright.

“Wha’s wrong?” Moblit blearily looks up from his microscope. “You put salt in your coffee again?”

“No! Armin’s bike! I promised I’d get it to him today—or, well, yesterday,” she answers, hazarding a glance at the clock. “Ahhh, this is terrible! I gotta go!”

“Hange, it’s four in the morning—” Moblit attempts, but she’s already shrugging off her lab coat and grabbing her purse, promising she’ll be back in thirty minutes, tops, and to text her immediately if Albert does anything interesting.

Hange doesn’t ride bikes often, but it’s a pretty smooth journey to SCU; the streets are near-empty at this hour, and the air is crisp and cool. She kinda feels like Julie Andrews gliding along the lamplit avenues, and she puts on a burst of speed once she hits campus. “Wahoooo!” she yells, laughing wildly.

Then she takes a sharp turn to head to Armin’s dorm, and the previously smooth and flat surface of the pavement turns into an unexpectedly steep downhill curve.

“Oh, boy, so that's what Armin was talking about,” Hange says, putting on the brakes.

…which choose this wonderfully inopportune moment to stall on her.

“Oh, shit,” Hange says. Following the laws of physics, with which she has intimate theoretical knowledge, Hange suddenly becomes a speeding object in motion unable to stop unless she 

A) Runs out of forward momentum

or

B) Hits something.

Thanks to an unsuspecting figure directly at the bottom of the hill, Hange puts all her money on option B.

 

* * *

 

His phone is ringing. Levi opens his eyes and sighs.

“ _What_ ,” he grumbles after fumbling to answer it.

Erwin chuckles on the other end. “Sorry. I know it’s early, but can you drop by my office and fax me the budget proposal? Henning forgot to include it.”

Levi checks his clock. “…it’s four fucking a.m.”

“Well, it’s seven here in Zhiganshina, and the meeting starts at eight. Can you do it or not?”

“…you owe me.”

“Thanks,” Erwin says, but Levi’s already hung up.

Levi tosses his phone on the bed and sighs again. “Fucking moron.”

So here he is, up at the ass-crack of dawn and trudging to Erwin’s fancy-pants office in fucking freezing weather because his friend is a forgetful idiot.  _God, I thought I left dawn behind me when I retired_ , Levi thinks.  _There’s a reason I schedule practices at nine. Jesus._

The only consolation is that nobody else is awake at this godforsaken hour, so Levi doesn’t have to deal with college students bumping into him left and right, or pestering him with flyers because his height makes them think he’s one of them and might actually care about what they have to offer. Though, seriously, does he look like the type to join a business frat? He doesn’t think so.

Still, the weather really is ridiculous.

“Goddammit, why is it so cold?” he mutters, hood up, sleeves down, earbuds tucked in and jogging lightly down the hill, hoping to raise his body temperature. “Mildly warm weather, my ass. The hell are those meteorologists doing?”

When he reaches the bottom, he blows lightly on his hands, then tucks them into the pockets of his jeans. They’re one of his nicer pairs, a gift from Mikasa for his half-birthday in June—they’re pristine-white and tailored, so he knows she actually put some thought into it. He’s never worn them before, but he’ll be seeing her later today when her fencing team comes in for practice, so he thinks he’ll let her know that her gift wasn’t completely useless. He knows she’s been down lately since that Eren kid has been spending a lot of time with their new soulmate—Arwin? Armit? Whatever. He hasn’t actually met the kid yet, but he sounds like a pain—

“Watch out, watch out, watch out!” someone screams, and when Levi looks behind him, some hotshot on a bike has decided to take the hill at full-speed—

—and is heading straight for him.

 _Shit—!_  he thinks, barely scrambling out of the way as the idiot careens past, missing him by a few scant inches but still managing to splash him with a generous dose of mud from the drainage ditch. They don’t stop, either, and keep on going until they crash front-wheel first right into the hedgerow.

Levi watches incredulously as they extract themselves from the shrubbery and pat themselves down, apparently not noticing or caring that they  _nearly_   _fucking ran him over_.

“Wahoo!” the attempted-hit-and-run biker says, pumping their fists into the air and doing some strange sort of dance. “I made it! Mwahahaha, not even gravity can slay Hange the Great!”

 _What the—? Was that on_ ** _purpose_** _? Was that a fucking_ ** _stunt_** _?_ Levi thinks.

“Hey!” he says out loud, temper getting the better of him. He stalks toward the offending moron. “Hey, you on the bike! Watch where you’re going! You fucking shithead, you just got mud all over my fucking jeans!”

 _First time I wear them and they’re fucking ruined_ , Levi thinks.  _What am I gonna tell Mikasa?_ The person stiffens as he approaches, turning their head in surprise. Levi can make out a pair of glasses and wide brown eyes in the dim lighting, and what is truly a distinctive nose. There’s something vaguely familiar about that profile, but he can’t think what, distracted as he is by his anger. “Yeah, I’m talking to you, shitty glasses! I just got these!” he barks, gesturing towards his mud-splattered jeans. “What’re you even doing on this side, can’t you see there’s a fucking bike lane for people like you? Damn public menace! Hey, I’m talking to you! Hey!”

The person turns fully around, and Levi can see that his would-be attacker is a woman. She’s wearing a long black trench-coat haphazardly thrown over a wrinkled shirt and…scrub pants? Stained scrub pants, too. Ugh, was that dried blood? God, what a slob. She’s got brown hair tied back into a disheveled ponytail, with a few stray strands falling into her eyes, and once she catches sight of Levi striding towards her, she bursts into raucous laughter.

Levi stops in his tracks, nonplussed. “What the hell—why are you laughing?” Is it—oh, hell no, it better not be because of his height. He is a fucking gymnast—his  _muscles_  have got muscles. Just because this moron’s got four inches on him does  _not_  mean he can’t snap her like a twig. “You think this is funny, punk? Huh? Huh? I’m gonna fucking murder you, just watch me, you inconsiderate asshole—” he says, taking a few steps forward and getting right in the woman’s face, but this backfires when she leans over and presses her forehead to his shoulder, clutching her stomach and howling with mirth. “— _would you stop laughing_ —” he grits out, but she only shakes her head and pushes him back.

And then she lifts her shirt up.

“—oh my god, did you just flash me?” Levi curls his mouth into a sneer. “Look, nobody wants to see your scrawny—” The woman’s still giggling, but she’s also pointing to a black smudge right under her left breast, and at this proximity, Levi can tell that it’s some weird tattoo, the lettering small but legible. His eyes glance over it automatically, and he quickly makes out the first line:

_Hey! Hey, you on the bike! Watch where you're going!_

…wait a minute.

“—oh, fuck me sideways, are you shitting me? That can’t say what I think it says. Fuck, no.  _No,_ ” Levi says, horrified. Oh, fucking shit, that was his handwriting. That was his handwriting. And his words. On this woman’s skin.

That means—that means—

The woman finally stops laughing long enough to say, “Hey, soulmate.” And then she’s doubled over, giggling again like some annoying hyena.

 _FUCK_.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Hope you enjoyed. :)


End file.
